(Guitar, vocals, b. 1931) Sumlin’s distinctive riffs are all over Howlin’ Wolf’s classic Chess recordings; Wolf plucked the Greenwood, Mississippi innovator from a band he had started with James Cotton, and Sumlin became an integral part of Wolf’s sound. After Wolf’s death in 1976, Sumlin joined saxophonist Eddie Shaw in his Wolf Gang band and ventured ...
(Frants Shoo’-brt) 1797–1828 Austrian composer Described by Liszt as ‘the most poetic of all composers’, Franz Schubert (1797–1828) was both the heir to the great Viennese classical tradition of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and the first true Romantic composer. In his short life, spent almost entirely in Vienna, he was known almost exclusively as a composer of songs ...
1848–1918 English composer Parry’s precocious musical talents earned him an Oxford music degree while still a schoolboy at Eton. From 1867 he studied with Sterndale Bennett and Macfarren at Oxford, where he became Professor of Music (1900–08); he then succeeded Sir George Grove as director of the Royal College of Music. Although he produced four symphonies and chamber music, ...
(Publisher, promoter, executive, 1923–72) Born in Poteet, Texas, Long was a central figure in the growth of the country-music industry from the 1950s until his death in the early 1970s. His business acumen was manifest in nearly every aspect of the business – everything from artist management and booking, to promotion and advertising. Long was ...
1797–1828, Austrian Celebrated for his instrumental works and over 600 songs, Franz Schubert knew that musical fame and fortune in Vienna lay above all in the opera house. In his teens he completed several one-act comedies and the ‘magic opera’, Des Teufels Lustschloss (‘The Devil’s Pleasure Palace’, 1814). Thanks to his friend, the baritone Johann Michael Vogl, ...
(Vocals, b. 1945) This raw-edged songstress emerged from the same Austin, Texas scene that yielded Stevie Ray Vaughan, with her 1986 debut Stranger Blues. Strehli, who was born in Lubbock, perfected her slow phrasing and dynamic attack at the famed Antone’s nightclub, learning from visiting artists Muddy Waters, Otis Rush, Albert Collins and ...
(Guitar, bass, reeds, programming, vocals, b. 1951) Cleveland, Ohio-born Sharp is on the cutting edge, combining his experience as an improviser – he was a cornerstone of Manhattan’s 1980s downtown, avant-garde music scene – with deep tradition. Sharp’s earliest gigs were with blues bands. After 20 years of sophisticated experimentation with other styles ...
The most famous living guitarist in the world, Eric Clapton’s career has passed through an extraordinary series of highs and lows during his long reign as a guitar hero. He has also experimented with numerous stylistic changes, but has always returned to his first love, the blues. A love child born in 1945, Clapton was brought up ...
Chicago blues is a raw, rough-and-tumble music, defined by slashing, Delta-rooted electric slide guitars, raunchy-toned harmonicas overblown into handheld microphones to the point of distortion, uptempo shuffled rummers, insistently walking bass players and declamatory, soulful vocalists who imbued the tunes with Southern gospel fervour. It became a universally recognized sound by the 1960s, ...
The cultural momentum of the 1950s spilled directly into the 1960s – arguably, the change of the decade (and century) in jazz was 1959, when Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Gil Evans, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, Jackie McLean, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Wes Montgomery, Sun ...
By definition, a contemporary era defies summary. No one living in it has the conclusive perspective to discern the prevailing character of our times, even though we all know what we’re going through, and can hear what we hear. The reductive view is: Americans, after a burst stock-market bubble and terrorist attacks, live in uncertainty, ...
Django Reinhardt (1910–53) overcame physical disabilities to create a unique playing style and one of the most highly influential sounds in jazz. He was born in Belgium to gypsy parents. At the age of eight his mother’s tribe settled near Paris. The French Gypsies, or Manouches, were medieval in their beliefs, and distrustful of modern science. But Django ...
(Piano, composer, 1883–1983) A long-surviving link to the ragtime era, James Hubert Blake wrote his first piece, ‘The Charleston Rag’, in 1899. The Baltimore native started out playing piano in sporting houses and with travelling medicine shows in the early 1900s. He also worked with bandleader-composer James Reese Europe before teaming up on the vaudeville circuit with ...
(Vocals, b. 1918) Best known for a pair of late 1950s and early 1960s hits – ‘Send Me The Pillow That You Dream On’ and ‘Please Help Me, I’m Falling’ – McLellan, Florida-born tenor singer Lawrence Hankins started singing during a slow recovery from an injury as a child. He has been a fixture on the Grand Ole ...
1863–1919 American composer Parker studied in Boston with the European-trained George Chadwick and in Munich with Josef Rheinberger, and later taught in New York and Yale, where his students included Charles Ives (1874–1954) and Roger Sessions (1896–1985). As a virtuoso organist he held a prestigious post at Trinity Church, Boston, and founded and conducted the New Hampshire ...
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An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...
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Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.
David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.